Another Letting Go Moment

There’s something incredibly terrifying about watching your son pull out of the driveway on a motorcycle. I watched both of my sons pull out of the driveway in a car on their first solo journeys. I wasn’t half as sick to my stomach as I was when I watched Sammy ride out on a motorcycle. Tom and I recently decided to take the advice of a man who suddenly lost his wife of 40 years. They had decided to wait until retirement to “live.” Sadly, because of brain cancer, she didn’t make it that far. We had been at his house looking at the motorcycle he had for sale. Since we sold the Bug the boys have been bugging Tom to get a motorcycle that they could ride. I wasn’t entirely convinced that it was the right time for me to get one, but if we got one, it would be my bike that they boys could ride if they wanted to. I had been happily riding on the back of Tom’s bike for 15 years and when asked if I ride would respond, “Oh, I have my endorsement.  I plan on it someday. Just not now.” When we left that guy shook my hand and got right up to me said, “Live your life.” I couldn’t get that guy’s sad eyes out of my mind. So I looked at Tom and said, “Let’s do it.” We found a little Harley-Davidson Sportster at Maxwell’s Cycle Shop in Petoskey and within three days it was sitting in our driveway. Robby was excited but Sammy was ecstatic. As soon as he found out he went out and got his permit and had been practicing on Tom’s big touring motorcycle while Tom gave him lessons on how to safely ride. He even watched all hour and 45 minutes of the Ride Like a Pro video and read through the safety course handbook that I sent him.

            “Can I take it out to show my friend?” “Puleeze!!”

            “He’s not going to just take off on it” I remember Tom saying.

            “Call your dad. If he feels confident that you’re ready, you can go.” He immediately called Tom at work. Pretty soon he had the ‘OK’ and was suiting up. I was a wreck.

            “Tie your shoes!”

            “Wear gloves!”

            “Assume everyone is going to pull out in front of you.”

            “Don’t hug the center line!”

            “Take your time.”

And then he was off. But like every other milestone in life, I had to let him go. We have had friends who have recently lost children, one to a motorcycle crash. It was a tragic reminder that it CAN happen to us. But I can’t keep him in a bubble. I have to say a prayer and try not to pace while I wait for him to get back. Terrifying or not, parenting is full of those letting go moments. This one just happens to be on a motorcycle.

Surviving my "Year of Crying"

Welcome to my Year of Crying. It isn't a year of crying over lost loved ones like 2010-11 was. It's more like my year of crying, 2011-12 when Robby was a senior in high school. In fact, I have been preparing myself for this year of crying because I remember every "last" that got me choked up to the point of tears the first time around. This year of crying began at this past spring's CHS commencement ceremony as I teared up watching my emotional friends return to their seats after handing diplomas to their graduating seniors, knowing that I would be doing the very same thing in approximately 364 days, (note to self: get waterproof mascara). This year of crying will be different though. It will be a year of lasts as my youngest son goes from a high school senior to a college freshman. I will cry on his last first day of school, his last first football game, and his last final football game. I'll be on the bleachers wiping away tears during his last first wrestling match and during his last tournament of the season. I will be misty-eyed though homecoming and prom pictures. I'll choke back tears as he pole vaults for the last time and as we go on college visits. Mostly, I will cry because I am not ready for this to end. I'm not ready to be done being the mom of school-aged children although I realize that even if I had 10 children, there eventually must come a time when I would be forced to pass into the next phase of life as the parent of adult children. Tom and I wonder what we will do on those quiet Friday nights in the fall, and the long Saturdays in the winter. There will be a gap between school aged children and grandchildren that we have been preparing for since the kids got drivers licenses and summer jobs. Even though I pray that this year will creep by I know that like everything else in life I will blink and it will be over. I will try to enjoy each moment, every report card, every joyful event, every heart break, every win, and every loss. Because in June 2015, life must carry on in new and hopefully exciting ways not only for our children, but for Tom and I as well. So if you see me and I am in tears, don't worry. They are tears of sadness for what must pass and tears of anticipation for what is to come. I will survive my year of crying because that anticipation far outweighs the wad of damp Kleenex in my hand.

The Endless Grouchy Teen Stage

"I am soooooooo over the grouchy teen stage!" I lamented to my aunt via text message. We started that stage of parenting when my older son Robby turned 13 and it continues with our younger son, Sammy, who is 17 and literally disgusted with our every word. I should have known. When our boys were toddlers I was having a conversation with a neighbor.
"I remember when my son was little. He was so sweet. Then he became a teenager and he turned on me." She warned.
"You must be a bad parent," I remember thinking. I was going to fill our home with positivity and open lines of communication. Wrong answer. I was quickly humbled to learn that I was just as bad at parenting because with each 13th birthday came a stranger. Apparently this isn't a new phenomenon. In her book, "Just wait till you have children of your own!" Erma Bombeck said that her children withdrew to their rooms when they turned 13 and didn't reappear until they were married. Where were my sweet boys, one who brought me wounded chipmunks and the other, who said "Watch Mom!" as he showed me tricks he could do on his rip-stick in the driveway? They talked to me about everything and had smiles that were contagious.
Now I find myself learning about my boys relationships through the gossip grapevine.
"I hear your son is taking so-and-so to Homecoming."
"Yes he is! She's a sweet girl. We're so glad he asked her."
Then I send the rage-filled text. "Really? I have to learn about your homecoming date from someone at school? Will you at least be kind enough to invite me to your wedding?"
I literally have to work up tears so they will tell me where prom pictures are going to be taken.
"I have raised you for 17 years and I can't even be there with the other moms when you get pictures taken? What have I done that is SO embarrassing? My mere presence is humiliating to you?"
"Take it easy Mom. I'll be sure to have someone's mom tag you on Facebook."
I know I'm not alone in this. One of my friends sat in her car for 20 minutes waiting to take homecoming pictures, only to learn that pictures were being taken at a different location.  Just asking simple questions evokes a hostile response with "that face." I recently said to Sammy, "Do you realize that the only time you're nice to me is when you want something from me?"
"No, he replied. I just asked you for gas money and I wasn't nice."

And there you have it. See you at your wedding!

A Few Simple Rules for Staying Home Alone

At parent teacher conferences I always get to talk to at a least a few parents who are raising boys and I think back to when our boys were young. They were pretty active and at times needed some pretty specific rules and guidance. Our boys are older now so we don't have much when it comes to rules other than, "Make smart choices," "Be home at a reasonable hour," and "Call if your plans change." They really aren't rules as much as they are guidelines. I am a worrier though. I'm the kind of parent that worries that if I don't say it, the worst might happen. I have said "Watch for deer" so many times that the kids thought it was funny to beat me to it and yell "Watch for deer!" on their way out the door. But then when Tom and I hit one with our motorcycle last fall I said, "See! It CAN happen. Anyone care to mock me now?"
When we first started leaving the kids home alone we had the fairly standard list of rules like "No fighting" and "No calling Mom or Dad for stupid reasons." Of course we had to be specific. "An emergency means someone has lost a limb, not Robby won't give me the remote." When they were old enough for whittling with pocket knives and air soft guns we would leave saying "No guns. No knives"  One day I specifically remember leaving for a ride on the motorcycle and as I swung my leg over the bike I called out "There's some steak on the stove!" Then at the same time Tom and I both yelled, "Don't eat the steak! There's yogurt in fridge" (obviously, someone could choke).
No guns
No knives
No solid food

For a while there it seemed like we were adding a new rule to the list every time we went out. Like the time we came home and one child had tied the other one up and left him in the back yard.
No rope

Someone learned that you could set fire to ants and leaves in the driveway with a magnifying glass.
No fire

"Robby broke the couch."
"How do you know he broke it. Looks fine to me"
"Well, we heard a huge crack when he hit it after jumping off the balcony."
No jumping off the balcony.

"Geeze! What can we do?"
"You can stay upstairs and watch a movie. Your brother can stay downstairs and play xbox."
I'm thankful that those days passed us by without serious injury or fire department intervention. These days when we leave all we say is "Clean up after yourselves and don't forget to feed the dog." And the response?  "OK. Watch for deer!"

You're Gonna Miss This

Well, it happened again.No matter how hard I try to control myself, I fail. It doesn't matter if I am driving home from work, riding on the back of the motorcycle, or jogging with my iPod. If I hear "You're Gonna Miss This" byTrace Adkins or "It Won't be Like This for Long" by Darius Rucker, I end up in tears, especially if I try to sing along. When my kids were young and I was in the throws of terrible twos or spending entire Saturdays at wrestling tournaments full of screaming kids, I didn't feel like I was "gonna miss this." Sometimes I feel bad that I didn't cherish every moment with my kids when they were young. More than once I stood at the check out line with a screaming child and a cart full of groceries thinking "Just take me now Lord" rather than "It won't be like this for long." I don't beat myself up over it. That's just the way parenting goes. When we are there, we don't always say "Hey, I'm gonna miss this." But something happens to me when I hear certain lines in those songs. I'm taken back to dropping a crying child off at daycare and an angry teenager telling me that I have no idea how he feels. But the line that really gets me every time I hear it is in the Trace Adkins song where the mom is apologizing to the plumber for her screaming kids and he says something like, "I have two babies of my own...ones twenty-six, ones twenty-three." I literally choke on the words every single time I try to sing them. In fact, I have a lump in my throat as I type this. My kids aren't out of the house yet, but they are independent young men who don't depend on me for much of anything anymore. I look at the pictures of them as little boys and wonder why it went by so fast. I hear screaming kids in the store and look at another middle aged mom and we smile at each other because we too had been there. The other night Tom and I were driving in the rain to watch Sammy play football. I was grumbling about having to sit in the stands and be cold and wet for two hours. And suddenly I remembered that it's his junior year. After next fall there won't be anymore football games, rain or shine. And I'm gonna miss this.